Sunday, March 23, 2008

What is Web 2.0?

According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is "a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users." This differs from the so-called Web 1.0 technologies, which were static and did not allow interaction and collaboration. Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, and Dale Dougherty of MediaLive International, co-creators of the "Web 2.0 Conference," offer the below examples of the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technology.

Web 1.0
Web 2.0
DoubleClick > GoogleAdsense
Ofoto > Flickr
Akamai > BitTorrent
mp3.com > Napster
Britannica Online > Wikipedia
personal websites > blogging
evite > upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation > search engine optimization
page views > cost per click
screen scraping > web services
publishing > participation
content mgmt systems > wikis
directories (taxonomy) > tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness > syndication

Additionally, O'Reilly, writing a 2005 article titled "What is Web 2.0," explored seven principal features (1. The Web as Platform; 2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence; 3. Data as the Next Intel Inside; 4. End of the Software Release Cycle; 5. Lightweight Programming Models; 6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device; and 7. Rich User Experiences) that he considers core competencies of Web 2.0. Upon initial research, O'Reilly's seven principles appear to be a logical organization for exploring Web 2.0.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

AB, great idea to write a blog on this. If I understand correctly, you are writing that the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0 is the level of collaboration allowed. Web 1.0 was static, whereas Web 2.0 is dynamic. Is that right? Also, I noticed that your chart listing the differences cut off some letters....what is EV? I assume that Optimi should be optimization.

Unknown said...

You are absolutely correct. As I understand it - and I'm a newbie t this, the main difference is the dynamic nature of creating, modifying, and overall interacting with web content. Sorry that my chart was cut off... "EV" is EVDB, and yes that should read optimization.